by Mary McBride
“We’re not leaving the horses right here, are we?” she asked as he helped her to the ground.
“Why not?”
“Well, why not just wear a sign saying Bank Robber, Gideon? Or stand in the middle of the street and announce to the whole town just what it is we intend to do?”
He looked down into her exasperated face. “We aren’t intending to do anything. You are going to walk over to that emporium and buy us something a little more substantial than shortbread and jam.” He stuffed a few bills into her hand and turned her by the shoulders. “Go on now.”
Honey balked. “I want to come with you.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Gideon.”
His expression hardened. “You’re not coming in the bank with me, Ed, and that’s final.” He aimed her toward the emporium again, and this time gave her a shove. “Go on.”
The last thing she wanted to do, she thought as she crossed the dusty street, was go in another small-town emporium. The little store in Golden yesterday had stirred up enough anxieties to last her the rest of her life. Over her shoulder, Honey glimpsed Gideon just as he sauntered through the door of the bank. His gun wasn’t even drawn, for heaven’s sake. Now how in blazes was he going to rob a bank without using his gun?
Honey shook her head. Sometimes—now, for instance—she didn’t think that man had all the sense he’d been born with. Assuming he’d been born with any at all.
Muttering under her breath, she proceeded along the quiet street and into the emporium. To all appearances, it seemed just like the one she had visited in Golden. With one exception, however. One very large exception, who was leaning an elbow on the counter and who wore a very bright, very large tin star pinned to his vest.
As Honey stood motionless just inside the door, the sheriff straightened up to his full six feet, then tipped the brim of his hat in her direction.
“Morning, ma’am,” he drawled.
From behind him a voice called cheerily, “Don’t let this big fella scare you off, missy. You just come right on in. We don’t see too many strangers around here. ‘Specially ones as pretty as you.”
“Tibbs is right about that,” the sheriff said with a slow smile aimed toward Honey. “The pretty part, I mean.” He took off his hat. “I’m Will Cummings, ma’am, and I’m right pleased to meet you.”
Honey looked from the badge on his chest to the big Colt Peacemaker on the lawman’s hip and felt the color drain from her face. If she wobbled she wasn’t aware of it, but suddenly Cummings had one arm around her waist and was leading her to a chair beside the potbellied stove. Then Tibbs, the elderly little storekeeper, rushed over to fan her with a newspaper. Honey kept seeing its dark headline—Third Territorial Bank Robbed—rising and falling in front of her face.
Four banks now, she thought bleakly. Gideon was just across the street. And the sheriff was here, patting her hand, wearing a concerned expression and that enormous gun. What in the world was she going to do?
She said the first words that tumbled into her brain. “I was attacked, Sheriff. Just outside of town. There was this man, and he—” Her voice broke as tears—real ones, she marveled—spilled from her eyes.
Cummings straightened up and planted his hat back on his head. “Where’d this happen, ma’am?”
Honey pointed a trembling hand south.
“What’d he look like?”
Oh, Lord. She could hardly think at all, much less come up with a believable description of a nonexistent assailant. All she wanted to do was get the sheriff out of town so Gideon could get away.
“Was he tall, ma’am?” the lawman pressed.
Honey nodded. “Yes, um, tall. Unusually tall. Six foot three or four, I’d guess.”
“Big man?”
“What?” She blinked up at him.
“Was he a big man? Stout?”
She shook her head, as she cast about inside it for details. “No. He was thin, actually. Almost gaunt.”
“Anything else about him, ma’am? Was this character bearded? Clean-shaven?”
“He had a beard,” Honey said, lifting her hand to her face. “Just along his chin. Right here.”
Lord Almighty, she thought. She was describing Abraham Lincoln. The poor man had been dead more than twenty years and here she was resurrecting him and accusing him of attempted rape.
“You just rest easy, pretty lady,” Will Cummings said. “I’ll ride south of town and have a look around. If he’s still around, I’ll find him, and when I do, you can bet that varmint will be wishing he’d never laid eyes on you, ma’am, much less his heathen hands.”
“Thank you, Sheriff,” Honey breathed weakly as he strode out of the emporium. “I’m better now,” she told the storekeeper, who was still levering the newspaper up and down in front of her face. “I believe I’ll just step outside for a bit of fresh air.”
Despite the little man’s protests, Honey proceeded out onto the street. She shaded her eyes in order to see the sheriff heading south as fast as his horse would carry him. All she had to do now, she thought, was get Gideon out of the bank and headed north. Fast.
* * *
The towheaded boy behind the counter was nervous. Too nervous as far as Gideon was concerned. All the other robberies since Santa Fe had gone like clockwork. The tellers had been informed he’d be coming. The canvas bags had been stuffed and ready to go. He’d barely had to say a word to the teller in Cerrillos or the one in Golden. But here in Madrid this pale, thin-lipped boy was definitely giving Gideon cause to worry. When he had walked into the bank and announced the holdup, the first thing the boy did was ask for identification.
“Gideon Summerfield,” Gideon had replied, slowly, distinctly.
The boy had rolled his watery blue eyes. “You say you’re Summerfield. How’m I supposed to know?”
“Were you expecting me?” Gideon had growled.
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m here.”
The towhead, dammit, had crossed his skinny arms and had poked out his pale chin. “Prove it.”
He didn’t have a paper on him telling who he was, Gideon thought. Not one little scrap. Now he was faced with a seventeen-year-old who was bucking for a medal or a reward from the Bankers’ Association. He didn’t need this. Didn’t need it at all, especially when he saw the boy’s hands move out of sight below the counter, no doubt fingering a loaded .45 stashed there.
It was too late to reach for his own gun, Gideon reckoned. If he moved more than a hair now this incipient hero would do something they’d both regret for the rest of their lives. And the rest of the boy’s life would be about two seconds.
“Don’t be a hero, kid,” he told him. “Just hand over the money.”
What happened next was Gideon’s worst nightmare come true as the door flew open behind him and Edwina Cassidy rushed in, face flushed, hair flying, eyes as big as headlamps on a train.
“Hurry,” she urged. “The sheriff’s prowling around.”
Gideon tried to keep one eye on the youth behind the counter as he responded to Ed. “Get out of here. Now.” He moved his body a few inches to the left, putting himself directly between her and the nervous, perhaps trigger-happy kid in the teller’s cage.
“Hurry,” she insisted. Stabbing a finger at a canvas sack leaning against the wall, she hurried toward it. “Is this it? Is this the money?” Then she grabbed the sack by the handles and said, “Let’s get out of here. We—”
The boy’s victorious cry cut her off. “I knew it! Gideon Summerfield was supposed to be alone. You’ve got a partner, Mr. Whoever-You-Are. And neither you or your partner is gonna rob this bank today.”
“Get out,” Gideon yelled at Edwina, shouldering her right out the door just as the kid lifted the barrel of the hidden gun and took aim.
The explosion of the .45 reverberated off the walls of the tiny bank and the recoil ripped the pistol from the boy’s hand and it thudded on the floor.
Now Gideon’s g
un cleared leather. “You let that weapon stay right where it is, you hear?” he snarled, his Colt aimed at the teller’s heart as he slowly backed toward the door.
The boy went even paler and his Adam’s apple jerked in his throat. “Yes, sir.”
Outside, Ed was already on the dun mare. She had untied Gideon’s horse and now she tossed him the reins. “Hurry,” she repeated as he mounted.
Gideon swore under his breath, clamped his left arm hard as he could against his side and slammed his heels into the horse.
* * *
They rode so hard and the footing was so treacherous as they headed back up into the hills that Honey could do nothing but hang on to her saddle horn and hope she didn’t pitch off Jonquil’s back. By the time they were several miles outside of Madrid, though, Gideon slowed down. Grateful as she was, Honey railed at him anyway as they rode side by side.
“I can’t for the life of me figure out how you made a career out of robbing banks,” she said, shaking her head. “You just strolled right in there, carefree as a summer breeze and blind as a damn bat. Did it ever occur to you to look around for the sheriff first?”
When Gideon didn’t answer, she blithely continued giving him chapter and verse about what, in her opinion, he had done wrong that morning.
“And for heaven’s sake, if you’re going to wear a gun you might as well use it. I don’t mean shooting people, mind you, but that boy would never have reached for a weapon if you had held him at gunpoint. You ought to be thanking your lucky stars, Gideon Summerfield, that he didn’t blow your head off.”
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“And as for the sheriff...”
“Toss me that money bag, Ed.”
She sat up taller in the saddle. “I will not.”
Gideon reached across the narrow space between their horses and ripped it out of her hand, then jammed the bag against his left side and held it in place with his elbow.
Honey simmered in silence for the next mile as he continued to ignore her. Then, finally, when they had reached the entrance to the mine they had left only hours before, Gideon slid down from his horse.
She waited a moment for him to help her down, as was his custom, and when he didn’t, Honey slung her leg out behind her, thumped to the ground, then advanced on her sullen companion like a wraith.
“Give me back that sack,” she demanded, tugging at the handle and wrenching it out of his grasp.
“Ed...”
Her jaw loosened as she stared at the blood-soaked bag in her hands. “Gideon?” Her voice was barely more than breath, and her lashes fluttered up to his face, to the gray eyes now dull and glazed with pain.
“You’re hurt,” she murmured incredulously.
“Listen to me now,” he said, taking her chin in his right hand while holding his left arm tightly against his side. “Don’t go getting panicky. It’s not as bad as it looks, Ed, but I’ve lost a lot of blood and I’m starting to get...to get a mite hazy.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than his knees buckled and Gideon sagged to the ground.
Chapter Ten
All the while she had struggled up the rough terrain toward the mine entrance with Gideon’s solid weight, Honey’s lips had moved in silent prayer. He had to be all right. Dear God, he had to be all right. She had fit her arms under his, and inch by inch, pulling for all she was worth, had lugged him up the rest of the hill.
By the time she reached the mine, her dress was ripped where she’d been stepping on the hem, and the seam at her waist had pulled out on one side. She was exhausted. Her face was streaked with tears now as she sat beside Gideon’s motionless body. She didn’t know what to do. She just plain didn’t know what to do. Her mind was empty—a complete, forlorn blank.
“Useless,” she said out loud. Even if she had known what to do, she didn’t know how to do it. A person couldn’t be more useless than that. She had come back home from school fully determined to show her father and the world in general that Honey Logan was a capable and responsible young woman, but so far, she’d failed every test. And now she was being tested again, only this time it wasn’t money that was at stake, or making a pot of coffee. This time it was somebody’s life. Gideon’s life.
Honey looked down at his pale, damp face, at his side where his shirt was soggy with blood. Her hands fell open helplessly in her lap, exposing the red mark where the hot pot handle had seared her palm. Gideon had known just what to do last night when that had happened. He had rushed at her, then taken her hand and kissed the hurt away. He had been there—caring and competent—when she needed him. Now his life was pouring out of him while she was just sitting here weeping and wailing.
“You’re not going to die, Gideon Summerfield,” she told him. “I absolutely refuse to let you die.” She got up on her knees and hovered over him. “I may not know what to do,” she muttered, “but I know I’m not going to let you bleed to death.”
She unbuttoned his shirt and gently tugged it from his belt, exposing the torn flesh at his side. The wound was just above his belt so she unfastened that, then unbuttoned his trousers and eased them down a few inches. For a moment her eyes lingered on the corrugated musculature of his abdomen and the soft brown hair that covered it. She touched him gently and those firm muscles twitched beneath her fingers.
As near as Honey could tell, the bullet had plowed across his side, leaving a deep and jagged furrow. The sight of the bright, sticky blood seemed to clear her head some as it stiffened her resolve. Quickly then, she ripped at the side seam of her hem and tore against the grain of the fabric until she had a foot-wide strip of material. It wasn’t all that clean, she noted dismally, but it would just have to do.
Gideon groaned and tried to push her hand away as she dabbed the folded linen at the wound. His eyelids flickered.
“I must have passed out,” he murmured, running his tongue over his dry lips. Then he raised his head to look around. “We made it back to the mine,” he said in surprise. “How’d I get up here?”
“You flew,” Honey said with all the briskness a competent nurse might have mustered. “I don’t think you should waste your strength or your breath talking right now, Gideon.”
He shifted on the ground, levering up slightly in order to peer down at his blood-soaked side. A low curse riffled from his lips. “Do me a favor, bright eyes. Go get the bottle of whiskey from my saddlebag, will you?”
“I really don’t think you ought to be drinking....”
Gideon’s mouth tightened in pain and frustration. “Just get it,” he said, then sagged back and closed his eyes. “Please. Just get it.”
As she trudged back down the hill, Honey noticed the trail of blood they’d left behind. Maybe she had hurt him worse by dragging him, but she hadn’t known what else to do. She did know, though, that she was lucky the horses were well trained and had remained right where she and Gideon had dismounted.
Saddlebag in hand, Honey spied the bloodstained canvas sack lying on the ground. She sighed. To her way of thinking a bag of money was hardly worth risking a life for. Not Gideon’s anyway. She snatched up the sack and carted that up the hill, too.
His eyes opened woozily when she knelt beside him. “Did you get the bottle?”
Honey nodded. “It’s in the saddlebag. Your getting drunk might help ease the pain, Gideon, but it isn’t going to do me much good in keeping you alive.”
“Just keep doing what I tell you.” He angled his head toward the cloth she had torn from her dress. “Soak that rag, Ed, but don’t use all the liquor. Save some for me.” He tried to laugh. “Save most of it.”
Honey realized now how fiercely her hands were trembling, and as she tried to pour the brown liquid onto the rag, a good portion of it dripped onto her skirt. “Damn,” she muttered, biting her lower lip.
“Take it easy,” Gideon said.
“Easy! You want me to be all calm and collected while I sit here like a useless fool watching you bleed to death?” S
he shot him a look of desperation as tears welled in her eyes. “Tell me you’re not going to die, Gideon. Please. And...and tell me what to do. I...I feel so helpless.”
He levered up on an elbow. “I’m too mean to die,” he said, taking the bottle from her hand. “And you’re doing fine, Ed, honey. Just don’t spill any more of this rotgut, all right?” He took a long swig and closed his eyes as he swallowed it.
She touched her thumb to the trickle of liquid on his chin. “What can I do, Gideon? Are you in terrible pain?” Her eyes searched his for an answer.
“What you can do right now is hand me that rag,” he said, pulling his shirt open farther and grimacing at the bloody wound. “I want to clean this up some and stop the bleeding.”
“Does it...does it hurt?” she asked, pressing the cloth into his hand, at the same time that she castigated herself for asking the question. “I’m sorry. Of course, it hurts.”
“Not as much as it’s about to.” Gideon’s breath whistled in through his teeth as he touched the whiskey-soaked rag to the wound. He swore mightily.
Honey turned away, unable to bear the sight of his face, even paler now, and the tautness of his mouth, which was nearly white at the corners.
When she turned back, he had sagged onto the ground. His eyes were closed tight and he was taking deep, rough breaths. She clasped his hand and closed her eyes, too.
After a few minutes, Gideon said, “Think you can unsaddle the horses?”
She nodded.
“We’re going to need a fire, too, Ed. And some water.” He squeezed her hand. “I don’t think I’m going to be in any shape to do much but sleep for a few hours.”
Honey scuttled up on her knees, preparing to rise. “Don’t even think about it. I’ll get everything done in two shakes.” She pushed her sleeves up. “One shake,” she corrected. “You just rest now.”
Gideon caught her hand as she rose, pulling her back down. His grasp was weak, however, and Honey noticed the clamminess of his palm. “It might be a rough night, bright eyes,” he said, “but I’m going to be all right. Trust me about that. I swear to you I’m not going to die and leave you out here all on your own.” His pain-clouded gray eyes searched her face. “Do you believe me?”
